Jamaica Diaspora Annual Roundup 2005

Annual Review | Published: 31 December 2005 | Jamaica Homes News

Key Takeaways: 2005 in Six Lines

• 7/7 London Bombings Strike the Heart of British-Jamaican South London
• Hurricane Katrina Devastates the Gulf Coast on 29 August
• Most Active Atlantic Hurricane Season on Record: 28 Named Storms
• Asafa Powell Sets 100m World Record of 9.77 Seconds in Athens
• Make Poverty History and Live 8 Unite Millions in June
• P.J. Patterson Prepares His Departure After Fourteen Years as PM

The Year in Review

2005 was the most testing year for Jamaica’s diaspora communities since the September 2001 attacks. The 7/7 London bombings of July struck the transport routes and neighbourhoods that define the geography of British-Jamaican life in south London — Brixton, Stockwell, Peckham, Lewisham. Fifty-two civilians were killed in four coordinated suicide attacks on the Underground and a double-decker bus; the British-Jamaican community was among the most directly affected in the immediate aftermath, in the grief that followed, and in the complex debate about British identity and minority community belonging that the attacks opened.

Hurricane Katrina made landfall in Louisiana on 29 August and produced the largest natural disaster in American history, displacing Caribbean-American communities across the Gulf Coast and revealing the racial and economic fault lines of American society in images broadcast globally. The 2005 Atlantic hurricane season — the most active on record with twenty-eight named storms — underlined the Caribbean’s front-line exposure to a climate system whose extremes were intensifying.

Against the weight of these events, the year also produced moments of collective pride and global solidarity. Asafa Powell’s 100m world record of 9.77 seconds in Athens announced Jamaica as the next generation’s sprint power. The Make Poverty History campaign and Live 8 concerts of June mobilised millions around development issues of direct relevance to Caribbean communities. The 1st Biennial Jamaica Diaspora Conference of 2004 moved into its implementation phase, establishing the accountability framework that would carry into the 2nd Biennial in June 2006. Annual remittances to Jamaica were approaching US$1.8 billion — a remarkable sustained flow that demonstrated the diaspora’s commitment to island family regardless of the pressures bearing on diaspora households themselves. As the year closed, P.J. Patterson’s announcement that he would hand over the prime ministership before the end of his term set the stage for the historic transition that would define the opening quarter of 2006.

Jamaica Diaspora Annual Roundup 2005 | Jamaica Homes News. Compiled from four quarterly editions published April, July, October 2005, and January 2006.

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